When Justice Triumphed
The Cumberland Mountains were quivering with the heat of an early August afternoon. The woods rang with the mellow echoes of axes, and the thundering crash of big trees.
Three mountain girls- Mary Stewart, Goldie Stewart, and Mary Vickery- strolled up the steep road from Coxton, KY., toward the farm of the Stewart girls' grandfather. They were after apples.
It was hot and dusty and when Will Middleton came along in his car and offered a lift, the girls climbed in. The errand completed, Middleton stopped at the bridge in Coxton to discharge his passengers.
The Stewart girls got out; Mary Vickery lingered behind, chatting with Middleton. After waiting five minutes, the Stewart sisters moved on; Mary was still talking earnestly to Middleton.
That night Mary Vickery did not return to her home in Coxton. In the morning her father, E.C. Vickery, a carpenter, reported her disappearance to Sheriff J.H. Blair of Harlan County.
Vickery described his daughter as short, heavy set, with sandy colored bobbed hair and blue eyes. She had on a black and white striped dress, black patent leather slippers and brown stockings. One of the stockings had been snagged when Mary climbed a fence, and it had been darned with a white thread.
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| Mary Vickery |
Mary was the eldest of his five children, Vickery said. She was only 14, but she had the development of a woman. Her mother had died when she was two, and she had been raised by a stepmother.
Middleton, on the strength of the story of the Stewart sisters, was arrested on August 18, 1925- the day after Mary disappeared.
GIRL REPORTED SEEN IN A MYSTERY CAR
Both Middleton and his brother-in-law, Otis King, who had been in the car with the three girls the day before, stoutly affirmed that Mary Vickery had left the machine within five minutes after the Stewart sisters departed.
A few minutes later, they said, they had a puncture. While fixing the tire at the roadside, Mary passed in a Ford [sedan]. She waved her hand at them as she went past. A man was driving the car, but they couldn't see his face. They knew the girl was Mary because of the black and white dress.
Sheriff Blair visited the neighbors along the mountain road to see if anyone else had seen Mary Vickery in the Ford.
Miss Capitola Smith, who lived in a cabin perched on the mountainside above the Coxton coal tipple, had seen a girl in a black and white dress in a Ford that afternoon. The car had a little long glass window in the rear and a spare tire on the back. And on the front axle dangled a small sign which read "Taxi."
There was one Ford taxicab arriving in Coxton serving Coston and the adjoining city of Harlan. It was own and driven by Condy Dabney, a former coal miner. He had come to Harlan from Coal Creek, Tenn., where he had a wife and two children, two months before. He was in his early thirties.
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| Condy Dabney |
Sheriff Blair readily located Dabney, awaiting the next train at the Harlan Depot for a possible fare. He found a tall, virile looking man, with blue eyes set deep in a burned face. There was a tilt to the brim of his slouch hat.
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Dabney appeared astounded when placed under arrest on a white slavery charge. He denied knowing Mary Vickery. She might have been in his car as a passenger - he hauled many women - but he had no recollection of carrying a girl in a black and white dress.
The taxicab driver was held in jail until the Grand Jury met. That body did not feel that there was enough evidence for an indictment. Dabney was released.
The mountaineer tried to resume his taxicab business. But women wouldn't ride with him. Some of his best men customers passed him up. Dabney gave it up as a bad job, failed to get a position in a coal mine, and left Harlan County.
On Oct. 21- two months after Mary Vickery disappeared-Deputy United States Marshal Adrian Metcalf received a tip that a still was in operation in the abandoned Bugger Hollow mine, on Ivy Hill.
SKELETON FOUND IN ABANDONED MINE
Metcalf and a colleague penetrated deep into the mine. Ploughing through several inches of water, they crawled over a pile of slate. About one hundred feet from the drift mouth, they saw a human arm bone protruding from beneath the slate.
Removing the slate Marshal Metcalf found the complete skeleton of a woman. She had been small of stature. There were tan oxfords, brown stockings, peach colored bloomers, and a black coat on the body, but no dress.
When news of the discovery reached Vickery, he went to the mine with Sheriff Blair to view the body. There was not enough flesh to identify it. The hair on the skeleton was course and black, but it was bobbed.
The tan shoes were the same size as his daughters' black ones, No.6-unusually large for a small woman. There was an L-Shaped tear in a stocking. It had been darned, but the yarn had so discolored that it could not be ascertained if white thread had been used.
"How about the teeth?" asked Sheriff Blair.
"Mary had two prominent teeth in front, with small, crooked teeth on each side," said Vickery.
So had the skeleton!
The next day Vickery returned to Bugger Hollow mine with Deputy Sheriff Tobe Reliford.
While they were searching around in the slate pile, Vickery turned to Reliford and said, "Here's Mary's ring. I bought it for Mary in Knoxville on her birthday, June 4." Vickery handed Reliford a small, cheap ring with a red stone.
Vickery, struggling to support four small children, could not afford to bury Mary. So the county took charge. Neither Vickery nor his wife went to the funeral. It seemed odd that the family evinced no more interest.
Sheriff Blair now went to Coal Creek and brought Dabney back to Harlan. This time he was charged with first degree murder.
Harlan now thoroughly enraged, and County Attorneys George R. Pope and C.J. Jarvis, and Commonwealth's Attorney W. A. Brock began to to build up a case. With Sheriff Blair they re-checked the movements of Condy Dabney on Aug.17 the day Mary Vickery disappeared. It was found that he boarded and roomed with Tom Pope at Coxton.
Pope said Dabney had breakfast at his boarding house on Aug.17, ate no meals there on the 18th, and appeared for breakfast on the 19th. Dabney then ate regularly until the 29th, when he left, displaying a letter to Mrs. Pope from his wife at Coal Creek, calling him home because of the illness of one of his children.
Pope couldn't say whether or not Dabney had occupied his room on the night of the 17th.
Mrs. Pope, however, was positive that Dabney had not been home on the night of the 17th. She said Dabney's taxicab always stood in the yard when he was in the house, and it was not there that night.
Willard Collier, who boarded with Tom Pope, told the authorities that a few days after Mary disappeared, when the authorities were searching for her in distant cities, Dabney had remarked to him this was a waste of time, as he thought she'd be found nearby.
THE TAXI DRIVER MEETS THE VICTIM
On this evidence the Commonwealth began preparations to present the case to the Grand Jury. The authorities were not very sure of their case. One reason was that Vickery admitted to Deputy Sheriff Reliford that he was not certain the body was that of his daughter. The second was that brown shoes were found on the body, while both the Steward girls and Vickery stated that she wore black slippers when she disappeared.
Then the authorities got a break. Marie Jackson, a 19-year-old Harlan girl, went to Sheriff Blair with this story:
On Aug. 17 she and Mary Vickery were walking along t he highway between Coxton and Harlan when Dabney came along in his machine, bound for the Harlan Depot to meet the incoming train. Marie flagged Dabney, with whom she had had dates, and inquired if he had a fare on the down trip.
Receiving a negative answer, Marie asked if she and Mary could ride down. She got in the front seat, and Mary Vickery sat in the back.
En route Dabney looked back over his shoulder and remarked, "Marie, that's a mighty pretty girl back there. I'm going to try to date her up."
Marie left the cab at Bob Marler's restaurant in Harlan. Mary was still in the cab. After eating, Marie went to the door and was standing there smoking a cigarette when Dabney drove up. Mary Vickery was now in the front seat.
Leaving Mary in the car, Dabney came to the door and said "I've got that little Vickery girl to go for a ride, but she won't come unless you come along. Have you anything to do now?"
Marie re-entered the cab, this time taking the back seat. It was now late in the afternoon. They went up to Ivy Hill, driving part of the way up the mountain. Then they got out and walked up above the entrance to Bugger Hollow mine. All three sat down on a log for a while, there in the deep woods.
After a few minutes, Dabney said "Marie, get up and go down the hill. I want to tell Mary something."
Marie obeyed but she sat down at a vantage point where she could watch Dabney and Mary. Soon Dabney put his arm around Mary and tried to kiss her. She pushed him away.
Dabney grabbed the Vickery girl again, and when she pulled loose from him, the taxi driver picked up a club and struck Mary over the head. The girl fell backwards from the log, and lay very still. Dabney now called out for Marie, and she went to him. She leaned down, and saw that the girl was dead.
"Marie, don't you tell this, "Dabney said. "If you do, I'll take you to the highest peak in the Cumberland Gap, tie you to a stake and burn you. If they get me before I kill you, I'll have some of my people do it."
Dabney then picked Mary Vickery up in his arms and carried her down toward the Bugger Hollow mine. Marie hurried away from the vicinity. She was thoroughly frightened and decided to leave town.
The next morning, she was waiting at the Harlan Depot, when the Dabney taxi drove into sight. She told Dabney she was going to Manchester. Dabney volunteered to take her as far as Pineville - some twenty miles on her way - and she accepted.
They did not discuss the crime en route. Dabney did not open the subject, and she was afraid to do so.
After a few weeks Marie Jackson returned to Harlan. For a long time she was afraid to tell any one a bout the murder. Then after the body was found, Marie t old Bob Marler and his wife-the restaurant folks. They advised her to tell the sheriff. So she did.
That was Marie's story.
Asked about Mary Vickery's attire that afternoon, Marie said she had a dark coat and tan shoes.
On the strength of this eyewitness story, the Grand Jury indicted Condy Dabney for murder in the first degree. A tiny court room, packed with curious mountain folk, was the setting for the trial that opened at Harlan on March 29, 1926, before Circuit Judge J.G. Forester.
Dabney's nemesis proved to be a tiny, dark-haired girl of 19. She could not be shaken from her story by C.G. Rawlings, defense counsel. Rawlings brought out, however, that she lived a free and easy life in which she kept no books on her income.
Dabney never took his eyes from her in all the hour and twenty minutes of her ordeal.
Marie Jackson did not blush or cast down her eyes in shame when Pearl Nowe, Police Chief of Harlan testified that her reputation was bad. On her way to and from the stand she held her head high and walked with a firm step. She left the impression, she had decided to tell it all and have it over with.
DEFENDANT TAKES STAND IN OWN DEFENSE
"Hit hain't fair," said the raw-boned mountaineer defendant, when he took the stand in his own defense. "I never knowed this gal, Mary Vickery. I never was on Ivy Hill. I'm a-takin' up for what's right and fair. I never done no meddlin' in other folks' business."
There was a strange silence in the court room as Dabney went on with the story of his life. He had worked in Tennessee coal mines since he was a child. He first came to Harlan a few months before, worked in the mines when there was work, and finally converted his old Ford into a taxi.
He had met Marie Jackson. He often had hauled her to Paw Paw Hollow with a man. He had an idea what they went there for, but he never asked questions. He said Marie Jackson tried to get him to leave his wife and children for her.
Dabney insisted he never preyed on girls, and that his relations with women passengers were purely professional.
But the story of Marie Jackson and the identification of the body by Vickery as that of his daughter satisfied the jury. On the first few votes it looked as though Dabney was going the short route which ends just beyond the little green door. The jury compromised on life imprisonment.
Dabney shivered when the verdict was read. He sat there by the trial table in a daze, climbing again the stairs of his thirty-three years.
***
Condy Dabney had been behind the gray walls of the state penitentiary at Frankfort for almost a year when, on March 19, 1927, a short, chunky girl entered a hotel at Williamsburg, some sixty miles from Harlan.
Mary Vickery. The name stirred a dormant chord in the memory of the clerk. He called in Deputy Sheriff Charles Cadell of Whitley County. To him it was more than reminiscent, and he made a dash up the stairs.
There sat the girl for whose murder a man was serving life.
Mary Vickery had left Coxton on August 17, 1925, because, she said, her father had beaten her with a broom handle. She changed her name to Rose Farmer. Her first stop was at Livingstone, where she worked as a waitress in a coffee shop. She moved on to Berea, where she obtained employment as a maid. After a few weeks, wanderlust seized her again and she gravitated to another city. On December 26 she heard that she was supposed to have been killed, and that Condy Dabney had been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Asked why she didn't let officials know that she was alive, Mary Vickery replied, "I just never thought of that."
On March 18, 1927 Mary, having saved up some money, decided to travel some more. So she boarded a train for Williamsburg. Her family had formerly lived there, so she became Mary Vickery again.
She denied knowing Marie Jackson or Conley Dabney.
More than two thousand citizens of Harlan County were at the railroad station on Sunday, March 20, 1927, when the fleshly shade of Mary Vickers back from "just travelin' around," arrived at Harlan in the company of Sheriff George S. Ward of Harlan County.
THE VICTIM RETURNS HOME
Among the absentees was Marie Jackson. She was in jail.
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| Marie Jackson's Mugshot |
On Monday the Grand Jury again took up the Mary Vickery case.
"A frightful travesty has recently been committed in Harlan County" said Judge Forester to the inquisitorial body. "It is of such a nature as to horrify even the most calloused. A man was indicted by this court on the charge of brutal murder and assault of a fourteen-year-old girl. This man is serving time in the penitentiary, under a life sentence for murder of the girl, who is alive and at the present moment in Harlan.
The jury decided the case upon the evidence of witnesses. One of these witnesses detailed the murder of the girl as an eyewitness. A more dastardly deed is inconceivable - to swear away the life of an innocent man is a crime for which the law, unfortunately, does not provide sufficient punishment.
There can be nothing lower or more degraded than to make an innocent human being suffer the tortures of a trial, to hear perjurers swear his life away, to hear the verdict of a jury confining him to prison and misery for life."
Marie Jackson was indicted for perjury. On the anniversary of the day that Condy Dabney was convicted of murder, the chief prosecuting witness against him was found guilty and sentenced to five years imprisonment in the same prison that housed Dabney.
But Marie had not yet commenced her prison term as Condy Dabney was whizzed from the prison to the State House in the automobile of Governor Fields.
A few minutes later a tall figure walked slowly down the marble steps of the Capitol of Kentucky. He went with unseeing eyes, unconscious of the few passersby who bowed or spoke to him respectfully. He was very tired. He had in his pocket a document which represented the official apology of the Commonwealth. It was March 22, 1927.
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| "The signature that freed the victim. Gov. William J. Fields of Kentucky (left) is shown signing of the pardon of Condy Dabney, who stands beside the Governor. Dabney was still a convict." |
Four days later Mary Vickery was married at Harlan to C.E. Dempsey in the office of one of the lawyers who had proved her dead - C.J. Jarvis.
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| clipped from the Lexington Herald Lexington, KY March 27, 1927 This was not part of the original article. I added it. |
Marie Jackson was released February 26, 1931. She was not again seen in Harlan.
Editors Note: Condy Dabney passed away on February 18, 1966 in Whitley County, KY and is buried in Rocky Top, Tennessee. I found no further information on any of the other individuals mentioned in the story.
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